senate are actually probably fairly slim at this point. what i'm really arguing in the piece fundamentally is that the president is unfit for office. now, that may be a distinction without a difference, but the point is, and i'm not really speaking politically. i'm not making a political judgment, because that's not our expertise at "christianity today." i am making a moral judgment that he's morally unfit or more precisely it's his public morality that makes him unfit, because all of us, anybody in leadership has -- none of us are perfect. we're not looking for saints. we do have private sins, ongoing patterns of behavior that reveal themselves in our private life that we're all trying to work on. but a president has certain responsibilities as a public figure to display a certain level of public character and public morality and the point of my argument is not to judge him

as a person in the eyes of god. that's not my job. but to judge his moral -- his public moral character and ask, has he gone so far that the evangelical constituency that we represent, can we in good conscience do the trade-off anymore. it gives us what we need on pro-life. the fundamental argument i'm making is we crossed a line somewhere in the impeachment hearings, at least in my mind, that that balance no longer works. we're dealing with a person who we -- >> brennan: but when i raise these questions to republicans who consider themselves people of faith, what they say is god picks imperfect vessels and the transaction here is that he is delivering on those platform issues. is it solely the abortion policy that keeps the evangelical community cemented in their support, because our polling shows that you, sir, are an

outlier. 79% of white evangelicals say president trump is doing a good job as president. >> yeah, i think the pro-life issue is just one of many. religious freedom for christians overseas especially would be another. you know, there have been books written about what's going on with the conservative evangelical support of trump, so that's not something we can get into here. it does go fairly deep. i think what i'm mostly concerned with is the fact, like you mentioned to a previous guest, it's the unwillingness of my brothers and sisters in christ, i have no animus against them, but it strikes me as strange for a people who take the teachings of jesus christ seriously, the teachings of the ten command. s seriously that we can't at least say, publicly and out loud in front of god and everybody, that this man's character is dopily, deeply concerning to us, and in my judgment has crossed a

line and i no longer think he's fit to lead the united states of america. i don't say that politically. my job... our job as christians is to love our neighbor. we want the united states, everybody, left, right, black, white, of every variety of sexuality, we want them to prosper, and i am saying that given the moral character, the public moral character of our president, that's not going to happen. it's likely to degenerate very democratically over the next... it has already degenerated, and it's time for us to put a stake in the ground and say no more. >> brennan: so you see the next election as a referendum on the moral fiber of this country? >> well, i don't know that i would put it that way. i am saying to my evangelical brothers and sisters, take your interests in politics and put it aside and lets start thinking about morality. do you really think... >> brennan: but if there is no other republican running on these platform issues, president trump is the only person that on

these issues you have laid out as so key to your community, some republicans just find it an impossible alternative to vote for a democrat. >> no, i grant that. i grant that. i'm saying what i think. and the only person i represent is me and maybe my magazine. not for that much longer since i'm retiring in a few days. you know what, you do about the fact that he's morally unfit, there are a lot of political options for that, and i don't really have a whole lot to say. some are going to say, work for his conviction at the senate. some are going to say overturn him at the, others will say that's impossible. we need to figure out a third strategy. i don't have a strategy. i'm in the a political person. the questions you were asking people on your show, you guys are amazing how much stuff noah bondy and the nuances. you guys figure that out. >> brennan: well, you are of course an influential voice within the evangelical community, as is your publication. we wanted to get do you weigh

in. thank you very much for your time. >> thank you for the time. i appreciate it. >> brennan: our political panelists are on their way in. so don't go away.

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to save hundreds of dollars on my car insurance with geico. (pterodactyl screech) believe it. geico could save you 15% or more on car insurance. >> brennan: we're back with some analysis from our political panel. david sanger is the national security correspondent and a senior writer for "the new york times." seung min kim covers the "washington post." jamelle bouie is a columnist with "the new york times." and ramesh ponnuru is the senior editor at the "national review" and a columnist at bloomberg opinion. ramesh, i want to start with you to pick up where we left off with the "christianity today" editorial. this kwandy that's laid out of judging the president of the united states as someone who should be a moral leader: that's something we talked about quite

a lot during the clinton impeachment as failing of that president. why aren't republicans openly talking about this. this editorial that was written caused a firestorm. i mean, it really got a lot of attention. why is this new that it's being talked about by republicans? >> well, in some ways we have been talking about nothing but the president's character for three years now and not just even cals, and not just conservatives. it's n a way it's a central issue in american politics. >> brennan: there are not many op eds calling for his removal from office. >> well, that's right. we with now have this impeachment controversy which has raised the stakes on the entire argument. there has been a huge evolution in these views. evangelicals as late as 2011 in polling, white evangelical christians were saying the president's character is important, the president without sound character can't be a good president. that has completely changed over time. and we're now in a situation where the parties are so polarized around this particular

person people are switching parties on the basis of whether they support this person, not on the basis of any particular view, right? we have seen that in the congress. we have seen that was justin amash and jeff van drew, amash leaving the republican party. van drew coming to the republican party just solely on the basis of what they think about president trump. that is the number-one polarizing issue now. >> brennan: jamelle, peter baker, the -- pete buttigieg, the mayor of south bend and 2020 presidential candidate, has talked about a discussion of morality and religion in his own campaign rhetoric. are democrats seeing an opportunity here in because even mark galli said, i don't know what to tell people to do politically in terms of this moral quandary. >> former vice president joe biden has made this the central point of his campaign, that he is running to restore dignity to the white house, right, to restore a sense of normalcy and also to get someone out who he views as immoral. i think some democrats,

especially more moderate candidates who are not trying to outbid each other with policy proposal, will probably take this line more and moreenly make one comment about the relationship between trump and white evangelicals. one thing that's important to note in this conversation is not just a sea change in opinion about how what evangelicals view political leadership, but and this is detailed in the book called the end of white christian america, robert jones, that over the past five years, white evangelicals have come to see their position in society embattled. they have come to see themselves as being on the losing end of a culture war, on the losing end of a political change, a demographic change some in that context, president trump may be immoral, but he appears to be at least a defender of their perceived religious and ethnic interests if your going to think of white evangelicalism as being sort of not a necessity, but a

national group, a kind of distinct demographic group within the country. >> brennan: "the new york times" did a very long read on fear and loyalty in the republican party. and it was acknowledging that there are these private conversations that i'm sure you've been part of, as i have i, of dissatisfaction but fear of speaking out. and it plays up this same idea. >> it does, because you have seen what happens to the republican officials when they do speak out, jeff flake, the former arizona senator, bob corker, the former tom tennessee senator. there is a reason why they are former united states senators, particularly for jeff flake when he was one of the most vocal critics of president trump and his conduct and his policies. his polling numbers just cratered. he knew he could not run for reelection again as a republican without that base of support in his party. what has gone on now, the president has such a lock on his party, and you talk to patrick mchenry was also quoted in

that article saying he has this loyalty among the voters, which is why you've seen also republican lawmakers take different political stances on policy issues they may not have had at other times. you have seen the republican party evolve on the issue of trade under trump and trumpism, if you will, on foreign policy. i think a big question that we will be examining for years to come is whether trump is a blip on the radar of the history of the republican party or if it's really fundamentally changing. >> brennan: david, one of the things that's unique to trumpism is his approach on foreign policy and that he's been fine with breaking from china because it's necessary on this impossible challenge with north korea. he would take a meeting with kim jong-un, and virtually no other president would consider doing it. he's now at this point where his centerpiece foreign policy issue is going to be tested in the coming days. what do you know about what north korea is planning? >> we don't know a whole lot of about what they're planning, but with we know a lot about what they've made and a lot about

what it is they're saying. what they've made is probably eight to ten new nuclear weapons or at least the fuel for those nuclear weapons in the 18 months since the president had the signature trip. by the way, the signature trip as you and i discussed before was a pretty brilliant idea to have the summit between these two leaders. that had never happened before since the end of the korean war. the problem is the president didn't prepare, and he didn't really have a plan for what he would do if kim basically used this to play for time. >> brennan: which is what has happened. and now we know that u.s. officials, they tell me, i know they tell you, they're taking this threat of ending the diplomacy seriously. they're hoping kim jong-un's year-end deadline isn't real. >> what's surprising to me is that there really isn't a plan "b." i was talking to white house officials, intelligence

officials today, and previous presidents, george bush, certainly president obama, had considered plans to take out an icbm on the pad. president obama executed a cyber operation against north korea's missile before they launched. it was only partially successful at best. but i don't see a whole lot of interest in the trump administration in doing anything other than waiting for this to happen and then going to the united nations. well, that's back to the same approach that the president used to complain was the failed policy of obama, bush, and others. >> brennan: and seung, one of the things we talk about, congress is trying to get a few more tools here. there are a lot of things tucked into the bill the president just signed. the perception in a lot of the country is that nothing happens

in the u.s. congress other than impeachment, but the president just signed a whole lot of things in the past 24 hours. >> he did. if you set aside impeachment, which is very difficult to do, the president on the policy front actually had a pretty good couple of week. he got his long-desired space force, the sixth branch of the military. he accomplished a major initiative that went a lot against republican orthodoxy, which is the paid family leave or parental leave for federal workers. he has a massive trade deal that had the support of democrats and got the support of the a.f.l.-c.i.o. on board and it will get ratted -- ratified by large margins in the congress. i think with all the political oxygen going toward impeachment, it is difficult for the president and his advisers to talk about his accomplishments. you do see the president at campaign rallies and at other events try to talk up what he's done for the economy and what he's done on the policy front. it all goes back to the question of impeachment. he's focused on it. he is obsessed with it. he is clamoring for that senate trial so that he could in his

view perhaps exonerate himself. that's going to be a focus ch it's going to be hard for the other policy messages to break out in the next couple weeks. >> brennan: we'll take a quick break here and we'll take a break and be back more with our panel.

. >> brennan: we are back now with more from our political panel and a christmas poll, too. ramesh, one thing that got a lot of attention we sides impeachment, and it take a lot to break through that news cycle, is what the president said at his rally in michigan right after the impeachment vote when he, not for the first time, spoke ill of the dead, specifically this time john dingell, a former congressman whose wife is a sitting congresswoman, debbie dingell. he suggested that he was not in heaven looking down but looking up from hell. he mentioned a lack of perhaps thankfulness on his widow for the fact he flew flags at half-staff following his death of the longest-serving congressman. this did get some attention, but

is this another john mccain moment? has this just become understood as this is the way president trump will continue to be? >> well, the president's supporters sometimes laud the fact that he's willing to fight, and he seems most eager the fight with people who are dead and can't fight back. [laughter] and whether that marks him as a strong leader is i suppose going to be matter of opinion. but one of the reasons the president's numbers have been so much worse than the strong economy would suggest is precisely because of events like this in which he continually reveals a character that some people like but that most americans recoil from. >> a separate thing about that event is that president trump said, you know, representative dingle should be thankful that i flew the flags at half-mast. that reflects what is seen throughout this presidency, which is that the president cannot separate himself the person from the office of the

presidency. so it's not that a lawmaker passed away and the country flies its flags at half-mast because of respect between mutual institutions, because it's the way we do things, but because president trump has personally said we're going to do this. >> brennan: a transaction. >> transactional, right. he cannot seem to -- i think this play into impeachment. he seems in some regards genuinely bewildered by it all because for him it seems whatever he does, because he does it as the president, and the presidency is emerged in his person, cannot really be wrong, it can't be some sort of offense, and so when he is challenged on it and when he's held accountable for it, it's not a sort of -- the reaction isn't, i shouldn't have done, that it's a genuine kind of, what does it even mean for me to have offended anyone. >> brennan: the president said just yesterday, well, what does it mean, because now he's

claiming that he wasn't actually impeached. speaker pelosi hasn't gone through the process of transferring the articles from the house to the senate. you heard two democrats explain some strategy there. what is the reality? >> well, isn't the phrase this year, "explaining your illusions"? we have all scratched our heads a little bit as to this latest tactic from democrats, because it has been a little bit hard to explain. one of the arguments they're giving is that they're trying to exert more leverage to shape the senate trial in terms they find favorable, especially as mcconnell is out there saying he's in close coordination with the white house. mcconnell and republicans have pointed out, you're trying to get more leverage out of us by withholding something we don't want anyway, so go ahead. but some of the other explanations could be that they're trying to buy more time to make a public case that the republicans are trying to do sham trial and trying to build that public pressure on

republican senators to perhaps allow witnesses, allow the subpoena of documents. also the other explanation that i have been told is to try and drive president trump crazy in hopes of maybe driving working him up a little bit and then maybe having trump pressure mcconnell to get the trial going right away on his terms. because we know the president has been looking to the senate trial, not only for an acquittal, but an exoneration. and we see kind of the little pockets of irritation come out from president trump recently. senator lindsey graham met with him on thursday night, and he told supporters that trump is "mad at hell" that pelosi is denying him this prom senate trial. he complained at a rally last night that it was so unfair that pelosi was doing this. so clearly what the speaker is doing is getting under the president's skin right now, but how that actually shapes how the senate trial is going to be is

yet to be seen. >> brennan: david, we heard from not someone you would expect as a defender of the president in terms of helpful messaging, but putt -- vladimir putin himself at a year-end press conference echoed a lot of the very same talking points that republicans say when it comes to characterizing this entire basis of impeachment. we saw democrats trying the overturn the 016 election,that this is aural a sham. >> the most remarkable part is the president then tweeted out vladimir putin's statement. on his own twitter feed, right? when was the last time you saw a president seeking the endorsement of an authoritarian running a country that is the most significant adversary to the united states? >> who he suggested -- who he is suggested to have some odd relationship with. he seems to endorse it by tweeting it. >> that's absolutely right. then at the same time opposing in a 22-page letter a bill

that's going through the senate right now sponsored by lindsey graham that would put additional sanctions on russia. so even in the midst of impeachment, they had -- they were tone deaf enough to basically oppose further sanctions. you know, this may get to the authoritarian issue that you were discussing. the president is having a hard time separating himself from the office, it may be in part because the leaders around the world that he admires the most don't separate themselves from the office, right? xi jinping, vladimir putin, erdogan urge turkey, who he talks to a lot, all of them, the word of the president is, it basically goes unchallenged or you face a significant penalty. that's remarkable. that tells you a lot about how the president envisions the job. and to many people, the concern is what happens if he then

survives this. >> brennan: well, that's a topic for a whole other panel. we'll have to leave it there, david. and we will be right back. ugl. (gonzo) yeah yeah. wait, what kind of sweater? (kermit) i said it's a really great sweater. (gonzo) no, what'd you say before that? (kermit) uh, really. (gonzo) after that. (kermit) sweater? (gonzo) before that. (kermit)[gulps] great. (gonzo) okay. (kermit) okay. (kermit vo) portal from facebook. it may come as a surprise... but medicare doesn't pay for everything. so help bridge the gap with a medigap insurance plan, like an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. medigap plans help pay some of what medicare doesn't,

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consumption abroad. >> reporter: efforts to appease both sides have fallen to the forest service. on open house tours and social media, there is plenty to look at by anyone who would be a good fit. >> you have a year before you receive title on that horse and in that time you'll be asked to show that you are taking good care of that horse. the facility requirements, the horse needs a 20 by 20 enclosure and a walk-in barn, a three-sided barn. >> reporter: meghan highnote has all of that on the ranch she helps manage in oregon. today's purchase is the second horse she's adopted from the double devil's garden. the horses here are believed to be descendents of domesticated horses, but generations living on their own have made them wild and now the challenge is to tame them. >> this is definitely my diamond in the rough. this will be my holiday project for the next couple of years so -- >> reporter: and she says it won't be her last.

john blackstone, san francisco. . millions on the holidays. the get away turns dangerous wednesday in virginia while hoppers dash for last-minute gifts. also tonight president trump turns his impeachment into a rallying cry. >> they had nothing. there's no crime. in fact, there's no impeachment. >> as debate rages over the next step. >> this email is explosive. mass castles. notre dame is dark at christmas. they run wild in the west while these horses could be yours. >> the horse of your dreams in this corral now. we need you to come out and pick him up. the newest gift is trending, >>mething old and nothing new.